


What Comes After the Flames

by Hypomone535



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Do I win the prize for best tag now, F/M, I'm not good at tags, More like Poetry than a story is that even a tag, Season 8, obviously, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 12:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18446657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypomone535/pseuds/Hypomone535
Summary: Not a Snow. Not a Stark. Fire. There is only fire.





	What Comes After the Flames

The crackle of the fire. A shift of a log. Instinct moves his eyes downward to the flames.

In the hearth the golden lovers danced together. Strength moved them, their beauty calling wanderers to their song. Snapping and breaking the wood that fed them. Eventually the fuel would crumble. The lovers would burn too brightly, too strongly, shattering the source that gave them life. Nothing but ash would remain. Gray and black would be the only memory of such a fantastic dance, sprinkling the ground with a blanket of death.

The wind outside swirled around them, encasing the truth to the occupants of the small room. His gray eyes remained fixed on the embers, twirling in their ignorance, a twisted celebration of their own death. And it was coming. Surely death was coming.

The envy that filled him tasted like steel, a sharp slash, cutting a hole across his leather. Hunching over, his arms came about his torso, trying to hold himself together. Instead, his entrails poured out from between his fingers, the very essence of his life splattered on the floor.

A moan, low and guttural came from some person near him, but he heard nothing. The fire was roaring in his ears, mixing with the ice that pelted the gray stone of the castle.

And then there were arms, hands and fingers grasping for him. They worked, desperately trying to mold the shattered pieces of him into something convenient.

Violet eyes spoke, “A consort.”

The face that had always looked like him, “Ours,” she growled. “Still ours.”

The white eyes, distant and vacant, “Now you know the truth.”

Others, nameless eyes that meant nothing to him:

“Prince.”

“Warrior.”

“Ruler.”

He pushed the hands off of him. His body bled from the remembered knives, once again finding himself cradled in the freezing snow. All alone he looked up at the darkness of the sky. The second time was easier, surrendering his life to emptiness of the void.

The flames mocked him, the unity of their song a beautiful mirage that wouldn’t last the long night. This was his life. This was his legacy.

Not a Snow.

Not a Stark.

Fire.

There was only fire.

.

.

.

And then from out of the ashes, somehow still growing, subtle but strong, a winter rose. She had been silent, not interjecting until she found him alone.

Blue, like the frost were her eyes, “A wolf by your father or mother. Still a wolf,” she whispered near the dying embers.

“Still the sword in the darkness, though not my brother, you are mine. Always mine.”

And in the quiet, after the flames, it wasn’t the brokenness and ash that covered his reborn heart.

It was the unexpected softness that had grown from the roots of home, blossoming and blooming into a pillar of constancy.

After the flames, there wasn’t death after all, but life.

And she was radiant.

**Author's Note:**

> Season 8 Mood.


End file.
